ARTICLES ABOUT INTERNET COMPANIES BY DATE - PAGE 3

BARCELONA (Reuters) - Last year's revelations over the U.S. tapping of phone and internet data gave telecoms firms pause for thought over whether they should sell their "big data" for gain, but the commercial potential could prove irresistible. Although figures are scarce, analysts think selling data on mobile users' locations, movements, and web browsing habits may grow into a multi billion-dollar market for the business. Big carriers like Telefonica, Verizon, Orange and Singapore's Starhub warn that they are only just starting to test the waters and pledge to market only anonymous crowd information to protect customers.

Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo and Google on Monday began publishing details about the number of secret government requests for data they receive, hoping to show limited involvement in controversial U.S. surveillance efforts. The tech industry has pushed for greater transparency on government data requests, seeking to shake off concerns about their involvement in vast, surreptitious surveillance programs revealed last summer by former spy contractor Edward Snowden. The government said last month it would relax rules restricting what details companies can disclose about Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)

Is Edward Snowden a whistle-blower or a traitor? There is a vast cultural divide between Silicon Valley and Washington on this issue, and the reasons reveal much about the broader debates about what to do in the wake of his leaks. In terms of my own perspective, I have written about privacy and the Internet for two decades, working closely with both civil liberties groups and Internet companies. On the government side, I first worked with intelligence agencies in the late 1990s when I chaired White House task forces on encryption and Internet wiretap laws.

* Seven & I Holdings CEO Suzuki shifts focus to e-commerce * Convenience stores to serve as distribution centres * Top executives sent to study examples of Macy's, others By Taiga Uranaka and Ritsuko Shimizu TOKYO, Dec 24 (Reuters) - The 81-year-old Japanese executive who built 7-Eleven into the world's biggest convenience store chain has a new mission: turning more than 50,000 bricks and mortar stores in Japan into portals to a new online retail empire. To do it, Toshifumi Suzuki, the chief executive of department store to mail order retailer Seven & I Holdings Co , is once again seeking inspiration in the United States.

* Law on military budget includes measures on monitoring * Allows additional government agencies to request data * Monitoring allowed on other grounds than national security * Tech and telecom companies against new law * 60 MPs needed to challenge law's constitutionality By Emile Picy and Leila Abboud PARIS, Dec 11 (Reuters) - France's Green Party said it would back a campaign to force the constitutional court to review a new law that expands the government's powers to monitor phone and Internet connection data without authorisation from a judge.

* Proposals follow murder of soldier Lee Rigby in London * UK wants to target militant preachers, groups * Experts says measure won't stop another Rigby death By Michael Holden LONDON, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Britain announced new proposals to tackle political militancy on Wednesday following the murder of a British soldier in London this year, but some experts said measures to tackle radical Islamism were vague and could be counter-productive. Lee Rigby, 25, a veteran of the Afghan War, was hacked to death in broad daylight in the Woolwich district of London in May, a killing which prompted Prime Minister David Cameron to set up a taskforce on tackling 'radicalisation'.

BRASILIA, Dec 4 (Reuters) - A vote on a bill that would force Internet giants like Google and Facebook to keep Brazilians' information inside the country will be delayed until next year over disagreements about its content, a senior lawmaker told Reuters on Wednesday. The bill would give President Dilma Rousseff powers to order Internet companies to store users' data in local servers, a move seen as response to allegations that the United States spied on her communications and that of thousands of regular Brazilians.

Nov 11 (Reuters) - Morgan Stanley lowered its industry view on internet stocks to "in-line" from "attractive," saying growth in the sector needs to accelerate to justify current valuations. Shares of Facebook Inc and LinkedIn Corp have more than doubled in the last one year, and trade 44 and 97 times forward earnings, according to Thomson Reuters data. Google Inc's shares have risen 56 percent in the same period and trade almost 20 times earnings, data showed. Morgan Stanley analysts said the rise in the valuation of internet stocks has been due to investors looking at the total addressable market (TAM)